Green Oasis

Mother Theresa lived her life with supreme compassion for the poor. Mahatma Gandhi struggled against the oppression of all people and lived a simple, virtuous life. The Dalai Lama crusades tirelessly for the freedom of the Tibetan people and the end of violence in the world. Wrong, wrong, and wrong. [warning: strong language] If you don’t want to sit through all 30 minutes, you can jump to the good bits about Mother Theresa.

We want to believe that people can reach superhuman levels of virtue. We want it so bad that we will latch onto someone, ignore their faults, and proclaim them a hero. It gives us hope that we can be better people. We want to believe that Mother Theresa, Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, Joseph Smith, Jesus of Nazareth, or the Buddha somehow transcended their humanity.

The wonderful truth is that we are all human, even our heroes. No one of us has been more than that: human. Many of us have led exemplary lives of service and heroism. But none of us have ever been something other than human. Humanity encompasses a broad field of virtue and vice.

Though we don’t like to consider it, our favorite demons like Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Chairman Mao, child rapists, terrorists, etc. are none of them truly demons. They were and are human beings every last one. That human beings—not so different from us—could be capable of such savagery is a dark thought. If there is any hope of preventing future cruelty, it is in our capacity to overcome the desire to pretend we are not like those villains and to acknowledge and accept our own capacity—as human beings—for the darkest of deeds. But we are also capable of great virtue and heroism.

People are not perfect. Not one perfectly virtuous person has walked the earth. Not a single perfectly villainous monster has been born of a woman. Good and evil are found everywhere and in all things. To worship our heroes as infallible gods and revile our villains as inhuman demons shows a profound lack of self-awareness.